


A Call Came From the Garrison

by Satirrian



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Cuban Lance (Voltron), Galaxy Garrison, Gen, Get ready for angst, Goddamn Iverson, Lance's Mother, POV Outsider, lance mcclain - Freeform, mentions of Hunk - Freeform, mentions of Kieth, mentions of Pidge, my own headcannon for Lance's family, now I'm sad, people think Lance is dead and it's sad, what happens to the family left behind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 04:58:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11616369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Satirrian/pseuds/Satirrian
Summary: “This is Commander Iverson from the Galaxy Garrison attempting to contact the relatives of one Lance McClain.” The man’s voice was gruff and harsh, tinny from the bad speakers. “We are obligated to inform you that he has been presumed missing, if not dead, and any knowledge you may have of his whereabouts are deemed to be of the highest importance to the United States government. We await your returning message.” The tone went off.An automated female voice asked if Percy wanted to delete the message or replay it.





	A Call Came From the Garrison

A call came from the Garrison at 19:02. It was on their old landline, an ancient piece of technology that the McClains only kept so that they could sign the number away to telemarketers. In fact, no one would have known the Garrison had called at all if they hadn’t left a voicemail message—  in English, of course.

Percy noticed the tiny message icon while he was stumbling toward the fridge in a hungry haze. He had been working on his last commission for the past five hours, and since Mamá was staying overnight at work, nobody had cooked anything. His blood felt sluggish, and his eyes drooped. Needed a refuel.

The telemarketers never left messages. Percy was grabbing the last slices of the Cuban bread and idly wondering if any pulled pork was left from yesterday when he hit the play button.

 _“This is Commander Iverson from the Galaxy Garrison attempting to contact the relatives of one Lance McClain.”_ The man’s voice was gruff and harsh, tinny from the bad speakers. _“We are obligated to inform you that he has been presumed missing, if not dead, and any knowledge you may have of his whereabouts are deemed to be of the highest importance to the United States government. We await your returning message.”_ The tone went off.

An automated female voice asked if Percy wanted to delete the message or replay it.

Percy realized he had been standing at the fridge with the door open for five minutes. He closed it. Mamá would have yelled at him for letting the cold get out.

_“—obligated to inform you that he has been presumed missing—”_

Percy turned back to his bread. Wait, no, he was looking for something to put on it. He turned back to the fridge, but he couldn’t seem to get a grip on the handle. His hand was shaking too much. His breathing starting coming in short huffs, and suddenly he knew what was happening. It’d happened to him a lot, back in art school.

What are five objects that he can see?

The fridge, the stupid _“Tea quiero mucho!”_ pun magnet— featuring a teapot and mug—  the McClains _loved_ their Spanish and English puns— the dumb black-and-white tiled floor, the pale yellow walls, his last pieces of bread over there on the counter.

What are five things he can feel?

He barely had to catalog more than his old blue flannel with the sleeves rolled up before he was already reasoning it out. That wasn’t the Garrison. Percy had just talked with Lance last week. Actually, Lance had called Mamá to wax on poetically about how great a fighter pilot he was becoming before Mamá had tossed her cell phone over to Percy with a stern look and Percy had endured the barrage of about twelve different things— from some annoying kid called Keith to how much he loved some person called Hunk— Percy actually interrupted at this point, quietly asking if Hunk was a name or a pet-name to which Lance had said, “He’s a hunk, _and_ he’s a Hunk, if you know what I mean, Perse,” and Percy could almost see Lance’s mischievous face doing that thing where he waggled his eyebrows in a way that made him want to cover his young niece’s eyes, so Percy had punished him by refusing to give Lance the satisfaction of knowing Percy had laughed.

“I really don’t want to know,” Percy had said instead.

“Aw, I bet you miss me running around, big boy.”

“You? Never. So glad you finally left. I couldn’t take all the karaoke nights.”

“Sing with the chest, not the throat, how many times do I have to tell you!”

“The advice sort of fails to take effect when it’s being parroted at me by a seven year old.”

“I wasn’t seven!”

“Ah-huh."

“I was at _least_ thirteen.”

“Listen,” Percy had caught sight of the next target to pawn Lance off on, “We’ll chat later. Here’s Suzy.” And Percy had thrown the cell phone over to his Tía who had unwittingly just entered the house, one glance cluing her into the game. At the time, she had thrown her head back and laughed.

“— _he has been presumed missing, if not dead—”_

It couldn’t be the Garrison. 

Percy walked over to the landline to check the caller ID. It was an out of country number. Nothing else. Percy knew the first number placed the caller in the United States. That’s where the Garrison was— in New Mexico. But, so what? It didn’t mean anything.

Percy took out his phone and typed out a text message. Lance’s contact was called “Venganza piquante.”

**—hey you good?**

Percy waited anxiously for a whole minute, constantly tapping the screen, checking to see if someone had read the message. He decided to send another one.

**—Lance call me when you’re free**

Percy waited another minute, tapping the screen, before he realized something. The messages weren’t even being delivered. Lance’s phone must be dead. Percy decided to call him, just to be sure.

The line went directly to Lance’s voicemail. “Hey, it’s Lance! Must be off doing some awesome-tastic stuff! But feel free to call me back at anytime— ‘specially if you’re hot! Mom, if you’re listening, I’m sorry I didn’t mean—” the _beep_ went off.

“Um, Lance, ¿Que bola? Your phone’s off, which is weird. Um. Call me back. We got a weird call that we need to take care of. Um, cuidate.” Percy hit the end button, feeling foolish.

He wasn’t hungry anymore.

He needed to tell someone.

Percy ran out of the kitchen and began searching the living room and the second floor for Suzy, but instead he found Lily’s door closed, so he knocked. When he heard a sort of mumble, he cracked the door open. Lily was there, straight brown hair tied into a low ponytail, headphones lowered around her neck. She had craned around so that she was looking at the door from her desk.

“Where’s your mother?” he asked.

“Why?” she huffed. “I’m doing homework.”

“Do you know where she is or not?”

“What’s got _your_ panties in a knot?”

 _Teens_ , Percy thought darkly to himself. “Adult stuff.”

Lily stood up. She was built like a stick. “ _Now_ I’m interested.”

“Do your homework,” Percy said, shutting the door. He began walking away, back downstairs. Lily burst open her door and skipped over to him. Percy gave her the side-eye.

She smirked in a way that was so _Lance_ that Percy immediately looked away. Lily and Lance were always the closest in age. They used to be inseparable. Best of friends. Chaos incarnate.

Percy was going to check the garden outside for Suzy.

“When’s the last time you heard from Lance?” he found himself asking her.

“Why you asking?” Suddenly, she gasped, “Ooooh, is he in _trouble_?! I knew it!”

“He might be.”

“What’d he do?”

Percy opened the glass door to the garden. There was always a little bit of a breeze in Varadero, probably from the sea, though Papá liked to joke it came from the airheaded tourists. The beach was only a few blocks away from their house, so a little blue glimmer could be seen on the horizon. Their garden was suffering in the heat a little bit, some bright flowering bushes wilting to brown. Suzy was trying to water them while the sun was setting.

Suzy was a middle aged woman, still sprightly and fit, though she certainly enjoyed her flan as much as the next guy. Her hair was a mass of brown curls, kept fairly short, and she was muttering something threatening at her watering can.

“Suzy,” Percy called, “Come in the kitchen for a bit.”

Suzy squinted at them. Puzzled, she set down her watering can.

It was a short walk back to the kitchen.

“Noooow are you going to tell us what happened to Lance?” Lily whined.

“Something happened to Lance?!” Suzy yelled, snapping around from wiping her hands on a cloth.

Percy swallowed. There must have been something in the way he was avoiding looking at them, or in the way he had hunched in on himself, because even Lily’s smile seemed to dry up like a flower melting in the heat.

“We got a call from the Garrison,” he choked out. “Listen to it.” And he pressed play. Percy didn’t want to hear this again.

 _“This is Commander Iverson,”_ probably wasn’t a real person, Percy thought to himself, _“from the Galaxy Garrison,”_ anyone could have looked up that Lance was attending the Garrison, _“attempting to contact the relatives of one Lance McClain.”_ This didn’t mean anything. “ _We are obligated to inform you,” —_ oh, it’s such a hardship, he thought, to inform his damn brother, his family—   _“that he has been presumed missing, if not dead, and any knowledge you may have of his whereabouts are deemed to be of the highest importance to the United States government._ ” The brief pause was so fragile that the phone’s static felt like broken glass. _“We await your returning message.”_

The line went dead.

At first, nobody said anything. Tía Suzy’s face had turned into some kind of cement mask of horror, the face of a woman who was thrown off a cliff and forced to watch herself hit the ground. Lily’s face was almost blank, except for the way she kept wobbling her bottom lip as if she wanted to say something but couldn’t find what or how.

And then finally, nobody could hold it any longer.

 _“Dios mío,”_ Suzy whispered.

Lily let out a sob, and simply collapsed on the ground.

Percy’s heart was beating very fast, because he was suddenly reminded of the day that Tía Suzy had called Papá and said her husband was dead, just dead, and that she didn’t know what to do anymore, and then Suzy had moved in with a Lily that just didn’t know where her father was, no matter how many times people told her they didn’t know either.

“It might not be a real message,” Percy found himself saying. “I’m going to— going to check the number online.”

Suzy fell forward, arms grasping at him, until Percy was the only thing keeping her up. They held the embrace while Suzy simply breathed. It wasn’t long before she drew herself away.

“I’ll get my laptop,” she said.

A quick Google search gave them a couple numbers for the Garrison. Carefully, they compared each one, but it was obvious, really, that one of them was an exact match.

It was obvious that it was a real message.

Suzy tried calling Lance a few times, but it always went straight to voicemail.

“Hey, it’s Lance!...

“Hey, it’s Lance!...

“Hey, it’s Lance! Must be off doing some—”

She stopped trying.

Lily had retreated to her room some time ago, and no one tried to stop her.

There was no point.

Percy had eventually sat on the floor right underneath the kitchen landline, head leaning back against the pale yellow walls. Suzy sat at the large kitchen table. There were ten seats. Suzy looked unbearably small amidst those seats.

“We have to tell them,” Suzy whispered.

Percy nodded, feeling like a sort of empty pit was growing inside of him— like one of those black holes that Lance was always talking about, sucking in all the air in the room so that it left him breathless and trying to survive in a suddenly poisonous world where nothing was as it should be.

That was when Mamá barged in.

Mamá McClain, all things considered, was not a tall woman, and although she was rather round and soft around the edges, she would never be mistaken for a pushover. Her hair was long, dark and wavy, her eyes warm like a beach day, and she wore a pressed white chef uniform with a little _Iberostar_ logo on it.

The first thing she said was: “What are you doing on the floor?!”

Percy stood up. “What are you doing here?”

Mamá was already bustling forward, cleaning up the bread Percy had left on the counter. “Lily, bless her soul. The only girl in this house with any damn _sense_.”

Percy was so glad to see her.

“Angie,” Suzy began, staring at the wall. “What did Lily tell you?”

Mamá crossed her arms, “Not much. Just that I needed to be here. So here I am.”

Percy ran forward and hugged her. Since he was almost a foot taller than her, he had to bend down a little bit, but it was still good. She rubbed his back in little circles and whispered, “Oh _mijo_ ,” into his shoulder.

“It’s Lance,” he finally said, and he felt Mamá tense up, “A call came from the Garrison.”

“What did my idiot son do now?” she grumbled, and Percy would have laughed if he didn’t feel like crying.

“No, Mamá, they said he’s— missing. That he’s been— kidnapped. Or something. Or maybe he just ran away and he’ll be turning up here any day,” and Percy’s breath caught, because he suddenly couldn’t see too well. He closed his eyes. “Yeah, he’ll be showing up any day now.” Percy wasn’t sure if his words were even intelligible anymore. Mamá kept holding him.

Eventually, she led him over to the kitchen table where she sat him next to Tía Suzy. Suzy grabbed his arm and held on, while Mamá found and replayed the voicemail.

Percy wasn’t sure what he expected, but he was glad it made Mamá angry. She punched the wall and yelled, “ _¿Qué es esta mierda?!”_ Immediately, she picked up the phone, practically bashing it into her ear, and slammed redial.

Someone must have picked up, because Mamá was running. “Hello, I am Lance McClain’s _mother_ and I am looking for the _borracho_ who called us saying some _utter nonsense about—_

“What do you mean _, hold on? Some coño just told me my son might be dead—”_

She paused, breathing heavily.

 _“You!”_ she hissed. “What do you get off telling innocent families about this kind of stuff without anything to back it up! He probably just _ran away!”_

A pause. Percy could almost hear a deep voice on the other end.

“No, he only had one smartphone. I think he also had an mp3 somewhere, but—”

Another pause.

“His wallet?” she said, voice small.

The man responded.

“When did he disappear?”

Percy hated the sound of this.

“For _how long?!”_

_“Why haven’t you been looking! That’s my son!”_

_“Your best isn’t good enough! Report this to the police!”_

_“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU ARE THE POLICE?”_

_“_ You have _no leads?! Nada?! What do I pay you for?!”_ _  
_ _“Listen, I don’t care, that’s MY SON! DON’T YOU SEE, THAT’S MY SON YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT!”_

_“I can’t deal with this fucking bullshit.”_

She slammed the phone onto the receiver. Mamá didn’t look at them. She was still breathing heavily. In short spurts, she told them what she learned.

They had found all of Lance’s belongings in his dorm, including his phone and his wallet.

Two other students were reported missing on the same day— Pidge Gunderson and Hunk Garrett. Those were Lance’s friends.

Lance had gone missing four days ago.

There were no leads.

They hadn’t found any bodies, though the desert was vast. A body could have been buried five feet deep in sand by now.

By all accounts, Lance had left of his own accord, leaving everything behind.

Nobody said anything. Mamá stormed away. As hard as it was for Percy, for Mamá— he couldn’t even imagine. Lance was her baby, would always be her baby. He was a whole seven years younger than Percy, who was the second youngest of all her children.

Percy wanted to throw up.

 _Oh, God, Lance,_ he thought, _where are you?_

  


**Author's Note:**

> I just couldn't forget about the Paladin's families back on Earth. I might do another of these with Hunk, we'll see. This might become a thing. 
> 
> Apologies if I have gotten any Spanish wrong! I am in no way fluent, nor Cuban, so, chances are, I got some things wrong. Corrections are appreciated! 
> 
> Also, I based the characters of this story off the family photo Lance was thinking of in one of the early episodes. Leave a comment if you're interested in hearing more about that. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
